Wednesday, August 31, 2011

I don't know that this will happen each and every Wednesday, due to the planning and preparation involved, but I'd like to start trying out some older recipes--that is, recipes from the 17th and 18th centuries. I'm lucky to still have access to databases like Early English Books Online and the Eighteenth Century Collections Online, because the University of Oklahoma lets engineers keep their OU netIDs for all eternity. The rest of us have to give up our access to internet resources on graduation. I just use Paul's log-in and I can access my old history-major haunts. I didn't have to do much digging to find the first edition of Hannah Woolley's 1664 cookery book, The Cook's Guide: or, Rare Receipts for Cookery.

While we started beans for our fall garden, they're not ready to harvest. I did find some lovely green beans at the organic market, so I decided I would make a modern recipe for Hannah Woolley's recipe for frying "Garden-beans." During the seventeenth century, John Tradescant the Elder introduced the English to runner beans.* For the preparation, Woolley writes: "Boil them well, then blanch them and fry them with sweet butter, whole pursley, and shred onions, and melt butter for the sawce" (p. 11).

Melt the butter over medium-high heat. When the foam subsides, grate in the shallot. Stir, then throw in the green beans and the parsley. Season well with salt. Cook just long enough to coat the green beans in parsley and butter.

*****

Because the Restoration totally rocks and Sir Peter Lely is an awesome painter, here's one of his paintings of Charles II (painted sometime around 1665), who is one of my very favorite bad monarchs. He's best known today for his slew of mistresses. Besides that, he was the first monarch to allow women on the English stage (Charles II, feminist icon?) and he quite frequently performed the same kind of political acts that got his father beheaded and his brother dethroned, such as governing without Parliament for years while he secretly got funding from his cousin, Louis XIV.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

The first of my faux-medieval items is a Rye and Whole-Wheat Bread, which arose as the result of medieval Britons growing rye and wheat as a mixed crop called maslin.* I've decided to go the ahistorical route and bake the bread in my bread machine. Also, people in the Middle Ages didn't have instant yeast. Or lots of other fun things like the internet...and sanitation.

Despite looking like a brick and having a rather heavy crumb (which I suppose makes it seem more medieval), Maslin Bread has a pleasing taste--it's a teeny bit sweet from the honey and the rye flour gives it depth of flavor without it actually tasting like a rye bread. I like how easy it is to make and the fact that it makes me feel all virtuous because it's whole grain. There's no reason why you couldn't make this without a bread machine, if you don't have one, but I haven't tried it myself because I love being able to throw all the ingredients in a machine and press a button. I've given instructions for the Zojirushi Home Bakery Supreme, because that's the machine I have. It makes a 2-lb loaf.

Despite taking two semesters of art history, I just discovered pre-Raphaelite Frank Cadogan Cowper! Where has he been all my life? His paintings are gorgeous. Put on the kettle (those poor people in the Middle Ages didn't have tea either!), butter a slice of Maslin Bread and enjoy.

Oklahoma! (Su 9/25/11 2:30 p.m.) faithful adaptation of Rogers and Hammerstein musical; no, this isn't what Oklahoma is really like, sorry, but the score did provide the state with its awesome state song

Sylvia Scarlett (M 9/26/11 6:30 a.m.) Katharine Hepburn disguises herself as a boy so she and her father can evade the French police and escape to England, where they meet up with con artist Cary Grant

Anthony Adverse (M 9/26/11 8:00 a.m.) I really only like this because it has Fredric March in it; otherwise it's really not worth watching

How do you like your steak? medium-rare, but I often tell waiters "rare" so my steak isn't overcooked

What was the last film you saw at the cinema?The Princess of Montpensier at the Murdock Theatre

What is your favorite TV show?The Supersizers

If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? In a pre-war Tudor-style brick house with a basement, a big yard, at least 4 bedrooms and at least 2 bathrooms; I'd also settle for the English countryside or Paris ;-)

What did you have for breakfast?Buttered toast, black coffee and homemade yogurt

What is your favorite food? toast

Foods you dislike? pickles and anything anise-flavored

Favorite place to eat? love to walk from our house to Il Vicino (even though I have to take my own utensils now because they're using those godawful Knorks) or Watermark

Favorite dressing? walnut vinaigrette

What kind of vehicle do you drive? Suzuki Grand Vitara

What are your favorite clothes? cardigans, Minnetonka moccasins

Where would you visit if you had the chance? saving up to go back to Europe, at present

Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full? I'd like to say 1/2 full, but realistically, I'm a bit of an Eeyore

Where would you want to retire? in my own paid-off abode, although I'm not totally against those places where they do your laundry and drive you to the American Legion hall for dancing

Any new and exciting news you'd like to share? Can't think of anything!

What did you want to be when you were little? baker, architect, UN consul, Ginger Rogers

What is your favorite memory? They all involve walking: family trips to Washington, D.C. and Boston; going for walks with my husband (in Paris or Wichita)

Are you a cat or dog person? I don't care as long as they're well-behaved, but I would like six or seven spaniels to follow me about in the manner of Charles II (as long as someone else cleans up after them)

Are you married? yes

Always wear your seat belt? yes

Been in a car accident? 5 of 'em

Any pet peeves? anti-intellectualism

Favorite pizza toppings? artichoke hearts

Favorite flower? poppies and peonies

Favorite ice cream? pistachio

Favorite fast food restaurant? Chipotle or Freddy's Frozen Custard

How many times did you fail your driver's test? 0; none of those accidents were my fault!

From whom did you get your last email? the ACLU

Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? The thought of maxing out my credit card makes me hyperventilate, but I love antique shopping

Do anything spontaneous lately? see #3--it was on a Tuesday

Like your job? almost all of the time

Broccoli? yes, please

What was your favorite vacation? Paris

Last person you went out to dinner with? Paul

What are you listening to right now? Paul playing Grand Theft Auto--well, I'm doing a fairly successful job of tuning it out, except Paul just said, "I guess I'm going to have to run that cop over." :-/

I'm assuming that given the demographics of my readers that many of you have probably seen this adaptation of Jane Austen's novel. If you haven't, you're in for a treat. Emma Thompson's screenplay is an improvement on the source material and the cast is fantastic. I've owned this movie on VHS and DVD and have been watching it fairly regularly since 1995 and it never gets old. That's how awesome it is.

Egg and Bacon Pie

I wanted to have a proper picnic to go with this post, but the weather has either been rainy or very hot. Welcome to August in Kansas! Maybe we'll have a nice picnic in September or October. I hope so! I do love a picnic! For my recipe, I chose Boxing Day Egg and Bacon Pie from How to Be a Domestic Goddess (one of my favorite cookbooks, for cooking and reading). The recipe is also at Nigella.com. Egg and Bacon pie is perfect for a picnic because it can be made a day or two in advance (or months, if you freeze it) and eaten cold.

As with the Nursery Fish Pie, I divided the portions in half: twelve instead of six. With eighteen ounces of bacon and a double-crust, a twelfth of a pie was more than enough, especially with a couple of vegetables! Egg and Bacon Pie is homey, hearty and delicious. It's a keeper!

Yesterday, I found a copy of Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book at a used bookstore over on the west side of Wichita. So, of course, I had to try a recipe to go with dinner. The produce selection has been really bad this summer. We had hotter-than-average June and July, so the farmers' markets were short on produce and everything we tried to grow at home during those couple of months shriveled up and died, so I've been more reliant on the grocery store, which at least has an organic section. Since none of it was local, I went with some cabbage because I happen to really like cabbage! This recipe is adapted from "Buttered Cabbage" in Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book.

Black Pepper-Nutmeg Cabbage

serves 4

1 cabbage
4 tablespoons butter
sea salt
black pepper
nutmeg

Remove outer leaves and quarter the cabbage, steam for approximately 8 minutes, or until just tender. Meanwhile, melt the butter over lowest heat and stir in salt, black pepper and nutmeg. Use a good amount of black pepper and nutmeg. Drain the cabbage and pour pepper-nutmeg butter over the top.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

I want to get specific about what constitutes "grass-fed beef," because I've had producers tell me their beef is grass fed "and then corn finished." All beef is grass fed to a certain point. However, most steers end their lives in a feedlot where they stand around on a concrete floor with a bunch of other steers and are fed corn until they reach slaughter weight. When I say "grass-fed beef," I mean beef that has stayed on the pasture its entire life. Of course, even a grass-fed steer will eat hay in the winter or during other lean times, but that's part of his natural diet.

Grass-fed beef is a pre-industrial ingredient, so we must look at how pre-industrial peoples prepared it:

If grass-fed beef is to be dry cooked (grilled, roasted, sautéed), it should be cooked to rare or medium-rare (to keep it nice and juicy) and requires the addition of cooking fat.

Grass-fed beef should only be cooked to well-done if moist heat is involved (boiling, braising).

Why? Corn-feeding beef has changed our expectations of how a cut of beef should behave, making it possible to cook a steak to well-done and it not resemble a piece of shoe-leather. This is because of the excessive fat which lubricates a cut of corn-fed beef. A corn-fed steer is obese; he provides his own cooking fat. While corn-fed beef may be juicy, its flavor is insipid compared to good grass-fed beef, which tastes like a beefier (literally!) version of beef. It's more satisfying.

I say "good," because I've had my fair share of indifferent and even bad grass-fed beef. It all depends on the producer and the breed. For example, I really love the beef from Turkey Foot Ranch, which is only about 50 miles from my house and they sell their products in the freezer section at my local health-food store. They raise red and black Angus, which is a very tasty breed. It's worth finding out what breed a producer raises, because each tastes differently. My personal favorites (so far) are Angus and Charolais.

What about cost? I firmly believe that the desire for healthy, tasty food is not elitist. It is possible to find reasonably-priced grass-fed beef; you only need to do a bit of research (see the Resources section). For example, the KC Strip from Turkey Foot Ranch is $12 per pound. Yes, it absolutely costs more than feedlot beef, but it's worth every penny.

However, if grass-fed beef's superior, succulent taste hasn't convinced you, here are a few things I've learned from doing my own research* on the subject:

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

John Everett Millais- A Huguenot, on St. Bartholomew's Day, Refusing to Shield Himself from Danger by Wearing the Roman Catholic Badge (via Wikipedia)

St. Bartholomew was born in the 1st century in Palestine and became the patron saint of butchers and tanners due to the fact that he was flayed alive. Happy thought, indeed. St. Bartholomew also became the patron-saint of bee-keepers and honey-makers.*

In 1572, the feast of St. Bartholomew became inextricably linked to the religious wars in France (and, indeed, throughout Europe). Francis Walsingham, one of Queen Elizabeth's advisors, encouraged Charles IX of France to support a Huguenot (French protestant) raid in the Spanish Netherlands in July 1572. It was a disaster and caused Charles to turn from his Huguenot admiral, Gaspard de Coligny, to Henri de Guise, founder of the Catholic League. On St. Bartholomew's Day 1572, Charles allowed the massacre of protestants gathered in Paris for the marriage of Charles's sister, Marguerite, to Henri de Navarre, a powerful protestant leader. The brutal act solidified English protestant support for Elizabeth, due to fears of what could happen to them should Mary Stuart become queen of England.** As a result of the massacre and continuing religious tensions in France throughout the early-modern period, tens of thousands of Huguenots emigrated from France, often settling in England or the English colonies in America.***

In honor of St. Bartholomew's Day, I made Honey Toffee Apples, adapted from the recipe in Cattern Cakes and Lace. Here's where I'm going to give you the opportunity to learn from my experience: taste the honey you're going to use before you try this recipe. Please. Not that the taste of the toffee was unpleasant, it was just weird. I usually buy local honey, but it doesn't usually taste like this! So, I believe that the problem I had with the recipe was my funky honey (It had a strong and savory taste when I tried it, which was, naturally after I'd made toffee...) and not the method, so I've included the recipe if you feel brave enough to attempt it!

I really love the burnished sheen of the toffee and the juxtaposition between the crisp crackly candy shell and the sweet-tart apple. I think next time I'll either try a different honey or use golden syrup instead. The honey toffee (leftovers from making the apples) isn't bad; I think it would do really well as a cough remedy and thus may start selling it as a patent medicine. Any takers?

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Poached eggs, if you've never seen them made, can be quite intimidating, especially when not using the little egg-poaching cups. However, I didn't want to buy an egg poacher and I used to hate cleaning the little cups in the one at my parents house, so Paul and I had to learn how to poach eggs. Thankfully, I have a 1946 copy of The Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book! Here are photos of Paul doing the honors so I could take the photos. He's a much more patient egg-cracker than I am and somehow manages to almost never break a yolk. That's why he's the egg-poaching master. No worries--you can be, too.*

1. Using a 13" covered skillet, bring salted water to a boil. It should be enough water to fill half the skillet and enough salt to be about 1/2 tablespoon per 1 quart of water. Just estimate.

2. Carefully break an egg into a saucer (be sure this is a saucer that can withstand boiling water). You need to be sure to keep the yolk in tact. Very fresh eggs with hold together better. (You can use the older ones for boiling.)

3. Slip the egg into the salted water.

4. Repeat until all eggs are in the water (you should be able to poach 4 to 6 at a time).

5. Turn the heat down to medium, cover the skillet and cook the eggs 3 to 5 minutes. We usually only do three minutes if the eggs are going into a dish that is cooked after the poached eggs are added.

6. Place a cloth over a plate. Remove the eggs from the water with a slotted spoon and drain on the cloth. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Monday, August 22, 2011

This salmon dish is quick, simple and tasty. The only advanced preparation required is to make the lemon-dill butter, which comes together in no time and freezes firm in about 20 minutes. You'll want to check your salmon a couple of minutes early, just to make sure it doesn't overcook. Few things are worse than overcooked fish! Serve salmon on a bed of buttered rice.

One last thing--this recipe makes enough butter for 8 people. Just keep the leftovers in the freezer for a quick salmon dinner whenever you want!

Since we really ate salmon while watching Gunga Din, I suppose that's the real movie tie-in, but the movie in Life this week is the Astaire-Rogers flick Carefree. I tried desperately to somehow connect my Scottish salmon to Carefree. Here goes: psychoanalyst Astaire gets his patient (Ginger Rogers) to eat an awful lot of seafood in an attempt to induce dreaming. And, Astaire dances and drives (golf balls, that is) to Irving Berlin's "Since They Turned 'Loch Lomond' Into Swing."

Carefree is the Astaire-Rogers film that doesn't really fit in with the others. First off, it's the only one that doesn't take place in the realm of showbiz. Yes, Ginger Rogers plays Amanda Cooper, a radio personality, but Fred Astaire plays a doctor, Tony Flagg. Secondly, it's Amanda who chases Tony in this film. Thirdly, Carefree comes off more as a screwball comedy (it even co-stars Ralph Bellamy) than a musical. It's rather an oddball in the Astaire-Rogers canon, but it's fun to watch nevertheless. Plus, it has a lot of scenes in a very "1930s Connecticut"-style country club. I love all the stone walls and big fireplaces. Lower your expectations slightly: Carefree doesn't quite stand up to the earlier Astaire-Rogers films (although I definitely prefer it to The Barkleys of Broadway) or to the other RKO screwball comedies (like Bringing Up Baby, released earlier the same year). However, it's better than most of the films that have come out in the last few years (in my humble opinion!) and you should be able to rent it, which is cheaper than going out to see a movie. Win-win!

Friday, August 19, 2011

The sad thing is, I have tons of reusable grocery bags, but I don't always remember to get them out of the car when I go in to shop! We've started using grocery-store plastic bags as our trash bags, so we haven't actually purchased trash bags in years, which is fabulous. Anyway, from a visit to World Market we have:

Gray scarf- to replace one I bought on the Boul'Mich, which sadly disappeared over the course of two moves

Taylors of Harrogate Yorkshire Gold- bought to try it out; it has a warrant from the Prince of Wales, which screams out from the shelf to a snob like myself (I keep saying I'm going to buy the organic gin that Prince Charles drinks some day, but I'm a wee bit attached to my Tanqueray, which has a royal warrant from the Queen)

Thursday, August 18, 2011

So, driving back from the farmers' market Saturday morning, I heard an economist on NPR* talking about how we didn't really have a recession--we had a contraction, which is even worse news. Not being an economist, what I could figure out is that while a recession is a blip that doesn't change the projected growth of the economy (i.e. it fits in the "best fit graph" equation for the economy), a contraction actually alters growth projections. I've decided to do my bit and point all of you lovelies in the direction of nearly-free entertainment. You'll have to keep paying for your electricity and internet access, though, which is a total bummer.

One of my favorite websites is Internet Archive, which is all about public-domain awesomeness. Did you know they have The 39 Steps available to download for free? How awesome is that? (Or, you can watch it on this page** if you don't want to download it.) And besides, who doesn't love Robert Donat? The 39 Steps is actually the first movie Paul and I watched after moving to Wichita. We had already changed the address on our Netflix subscription and the disc arrived shortly after we did! After we had unloaded the last box from the moving van and our family members had left for Oklahoma City, Paul and I rolled the TV cart (no big flat-screen then!) next to the bed, propped ourselves up with pillows and vegged out.

While not very faithful to its source material (Alfred Hitchcock was bad about that.), The 39 Steps is an entertaining chase through London and the Scottish highlands when Robert Donat's character (Richard Hannay) is wrongly (of course!) suspected of murder. He meets Pamela (Madeleine Carroll) along the way and she gives him almost as much trouble as the police. Both Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll learn that things aren't always as they appear...

*****

It looks like a biscuit, smells like a biscuit, tastes like a biscuit, but it isn't a biscuit--it's a Potato Scone! Thankfully, a scone that stealthily conceals one of its ingredients isn't insidious like the villains in The 39 Steps--it's just tasty.

Work the softened butter into the flour mixture

What dough looks like after butter is mixed in

Mash the boiled potatoes

Add potatoes to dough

Make a well for the milk

Mix in enough milk so that dough becomes cohesive (keep checking; it happens more quickly than you'd think!)

Cut dough into twelve triangles

Bake on a floured baking sheet (Don't forget the little bits you've trimmed off the scones!)

I've been eating these for breakfast this week. So I have fresh scones every morning, I wrapped each square (two triangles) in plastic wrap and then put them in a container in the freezer. When I get up, I place the two scones on a baking sheet and preheat the oven. It takes about twelve minutes (instead of ten) to bake them from their frozen state.Potato Scones

I'm incapable of passing up gorgeous transferware if it's a decent price (or downright cheap). Unfortunately, I only have this cup and saucer in this particular pattern! I'm keeping an eye out for it, though, and hoping I can find a good deal on some other pieces.

*****

*Farmers' markets and NPR?! Now you'll only need one guess as to my voter registration... ;-)